Arkansas: “Amid Months-Long Fight Over Censorship, Saline County Judge Wins the Power to Fire Librarians”
From the Arkansas Times:
The battle over censorship in Arkansas libraries raged on Monday evening as the Saline County Quorum Court landed their latest jab. With an 11-2 vote, the county board cut the power of the Saline County Library Board and awarded the county judge the power to hire and fire librarians.
Monday’s vote came after months of wrangling in Saline County over what should be in public libraries, and who gets to decide whether books are appropriate for children. The vote Monday will allow County Judge Matt Brumley to fire Saline County Library Director Patty Hector over her refusal to remove books with vaguely LGBTQ+ themes from the children’s section shelves. Brumley and some Saline County JPs have said they lost confidence in Hector’s ability to do the job after Hector declined to scrub the library youth sections of books that include gay and gender-nonconforming characters and themes.
Learn More, Read the Complete Article (about 880 words)
Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
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